


Ready, My Dear Emmy?

by cindereulla



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 03:43:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10585728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cindereulla/pseuds/cindereulla
Summary: Emily Livingston had fallen, hopelessly and irrevocably, in love. She had fallen in love with a mad man with a blue box, and if she was going to die today, it was at least going to be on the beach where he fell into her life.A look into the life of a companion who falls in love with the Doctor, and what it means to have to pick up the pieces, to move on.





	

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Doctor Who, nor do I stand to profit in any way, shape, or form from any of my works. Just borrowing.

Emily sat in the sand, looking out over the expanse of waves before her. She dug her feet into the damp sand that lay beneath the fine, sparkling powder that mounded around her ankles. She had just completed the last entry she ever intended to write in the tattered, soft pink journal that had been with her through the only part of her life that mattered now. She closed the journal and set it on the sand beside her. She didn't know what would become of it after today. She knew if someone found it and read it they would think it a work of fiction or the writings of a madwoman. She didn't care. It didn't matter now. Not one thing mattered but this. This moment. Her final moment.

She turned her face towards the sun and reveled in the warmth of it. She closed her eyes and breathed in the crisp salt air for what she knew would be one of the last times and smiled as her favorite image entered her mind. This was what she wanted her last thoughts to be. She could see it as clearly as if he were standing before her. Hands in his pockets. Tall and lean. That wild hair hanging in his eyes. Those eyes. Those ancient eyes. Young and old at the same time. That impish grin that spread across his face, a mask hiding centuries of grief. He would reach up and straighten that bow tie, then he would say what he always told her before he whisked her off to some fantastically beautiful, strange, horrifying, dangerous, amazing place. "Ready my dear Emmy?" He would reach his hand out and she would take it and off they would go hand in hand, the very best of friends.

She focused on this image. She replayed it over and over in her mind. This is what she held onto as she heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps approaching in the sand. She had heard their ship land hours ago. It was a sound few humans could pickup on. The gentle electronic clicking of the Maquillian battle ship was easily explained away by the untrained human ear as the simple sounds of living in a city. Once a person knew that sound, though, they would never forget it. They would never forget the cold terror that courses through their veins once they have seen the horrors that happen at the hands of Maquillian soldiers. She was going to die today, of this she was certain.

She had been warned months ago that there were whispers in the communication logs at Torchwood. Jack had arrived at her condo with every intention of taking her back to Cardiff to keep her under their watch. He had told her that it had come to their attention that the Maquillians were planning something. They were angry with the Doctor and seeking revenge. They had discovered that he had been present for negotiations between Maquillius and one of their adversaries when a member of their Royal Guard had been assassinated. The Doctor had tried to intervene and it seemed that a resolution had been reached, but at the last minute a member of the invaded planet, who's loved ones had died at Maquillian hands, had broken into the peace talks and assassinated the Maquillian Admiral of the Royal Guard. The Maquillians accused the Doctor of planning the assassination. She knew, of course, that this was wrong, but she also knew that he was very good at making enemies. This was, perhaps, one of his most well practiced skills, for he had a great deal of them.

Jack had continued explaining the finer political details long after she had stopped listening. They were of little consequence. None of it changed anything. It didn't matter what enemy, what precipitated it, or how long until they arrived. She knew what this meant. The Maquillians wanted the Doctor dead, and what better way to bring the Doctor to them than to take one of his companions hostage. What Jack didn't know is that she had long come to accept that the Doctor, her Doctor, was not coming back. He had moved on. This meant one thing. She was as good as dead. She always knew it might end this way, and she was alright with that. If it bought him just a little time, or served a greater purpose to which she was not privy, she was just fine with that. She had had all of this with him and that was enough. So, when she refused to return to Torchwood with Jack he was beside himself.

"You are signing your own death warrant by staying here Emmy." He said to her with disbelief in his voice.

"Jack, I signed that the moment I stepped into that TARDIS. There are ways to die that don't have a thing to do with being killed." She replied with certainty.

So she stayed home and waited. Waited for this enemy of the Doctor to come and complete their fruitless attempt to trap and kill him. That is how she came to be on this beach. The beach behind her condo was the place she wanted to die. It was the place she first met the Doctor and it was where she wanted to be when she took her last breath thinking of him.

"Why do you not run, human?" The soldier asked, his voice dripping with the familiar Maquillian accent that struck fear in the heart of the galaxy.

"I have no reason to. You intend to kill me and I do not fear death." She stated simply, not doing him the courtesy of looking at him.

She smiled and closed her eyes again. She pictured her Doctor, the man she loved. "Ready my dear Emmy?" she heard him ask her and, in her mind, she took his hand and waited for the end that she had accepted. The end she was ok with, so long as it was with him. Even if it was only in her mind.

~

Emily Livingston plopped down on her couch, mac and cheese in hand, and settled in for a Friday night movie marathon. This was how she ended every week. It was always the same. Monday through Friday. She would go into work at the accounting firm that she had been at every day since she graduated from school. She worked for a CPA that looked more like a puffer fish than a certified public accountant with some of the most important accounts in the city. He was nice enough and had given her a job when most of her school mates were working at H and R Block. It would give her a foot in the door that she wouldn't have had otherwise. She was grateful for that. Sometimes she wondered, though, if this was enough. Was counting other peoples money and spending her free time watching stories of other peoples lives on her less than impressive console television how she wanted to spend the rest of her existence?

She had chosen to study accounting because it was safe. She would have a job at the end of school. There were few variables. One way to do the job right. She felt safe with that. She watched her colleagues all go off after school and lead the same lives. Graduate. Get a stable job. Get married. Pop out a couple kids and then wait to die. She supposed they may have a handful of other plans in between procreation and death, but she couldn't imagine what adventures aging accountants planned on having. She couldn't really judge them though. All she had accomplished at this point was the job and purchasing the condo on the beach that she so loved. She wasn't displeased with her life, but it was safe to say that it wasn't exactly the plan either. She always thought by now that she would have a husband lined up and would be well on her way to sharing a cookie cutter life with a male version of herself. Yet, here she sat with her bowl of mac and cheese, not so much as a cat to call company. She wasn't even the cat lady. Damn.

She sighed to herself, plowed through the rest of her sad excuse for a dinner, and turned off the TV. She put her bowl in the sink and rinsed it out. Heaven forbid she leave a messy dish. She couldn't even bring herself to break a rule in her own kitchen.

"Real exciting life you got here Emily." She grumbled to herself.

She grabbed a beer out of the fridge and stomped out to her deck. The night air was cool on her skin and she wrapped her sweater tightly around her shoulders. She walked down the steps to the beach behind her house. This was one of her simple pleasures in life. The sound of the ocean waves crashing up against the sand was therapeutic to her. It made her believe, for just a second, that there was a whole world out past those waters waiting for her if she would just be brave enough to go after it. She never was, but when she walked on this beach, her beach, she believed it.

She sat down in the sand and drew her knees up to her chest. She took another swig of her beer and looked out over the moonlit waters. She looked up at the starry sky and smiled when she saw a shooting star. The same wish she always made ran through her mind. She sighed and looked back up to the sky. She furrowed her brow. The star seemed so much closer and brighter. Odd. It kept getting bigger and bigger. Closer and closer. It began to take shape and began to come towards her very quickly and was moving very erratically. She began to scramble up and run back towards her condo, but before she could even make it to her deck she heard a crash on the beach and was thrown forward in the air. A shower of sand came down upon her. She pushed herself up and began to shake the sand off of her. She turned around and tentatively began to approach the mound of sand in front of her. Pressed into the sand was a huge blue box. The closer she got she could see that it had doors. across the top was a banner that said "Police Public Call Box.”

"What the hell?" she asked to herself.

As if to answer, the doors flew open and a tall, gangly man with a bow tie stumbled out of the box. He had wild hair and gentle eyes.

"Oh hello." He grinned at her and looked a bit confused. "I'm the Doctor" He extended his hand.

She shook it carefully. "Emily Livingston.”

She didn't know it at the time, but this was the first day of her life. This was the day she met the Doctor.

~

"Nice to meet you Emily. You wouldn't happen to have any duct tape on you? Wonderful stuff, duct tape. Just the thing to hold a centuries old TARDIS console together after a rough landing." He said gesturing to the inside of the blue box over his shoulder with his thumb.

"What?" Emily responded, shaking her head.

"Duct tape, dear." He repeated and waited expectantly with his hands clasped together.

”Um. Sure. It's back at the house. Are you OK? You just, um, fell out of the sky." She stammered.

"Oh yes, right. Landings can get a bit rough when I haven't recharged at the rift. I'm fine. Just need to piece a few things back together and I'll be on my way.”

He tripped as he stepped over the threshold. He looked a bit like a drunk giraffe as he tried to get his footing in the sand. She stared at him, open mouthed.

"Is that your house then?" He asked and started to walk towards the condo.

She ran after him and followed him up onto her deck. He walked straight into her living room and started examining every detail and item as he chattered on about a "faulty navigational unit" and "jammy dodgers lodged in the control panel" and "really needing to have the TARDIS move the kitchen further away from the system controls". She went to the kitchen and pulled a roll of duct tape out of her junk drawer. She walked back over to him and handed it over.

"Lovely!" He exclaimed, as though she had just handed him some priceless relic. He spun on his heels and sort of bounced back out of the living room and back out onto the beach. He reminded her a bit of Tigger, if Tigger was trapped in a pinball machine.

She ran after him back out to the big, blue box. He stepped inside and was still talking as though he expected her to follow. She cracked open the door and peered in. She stepped back and looked at the call box again, then peered back in. This wasn't right. She walked all the way around the call box and back to the front. Finally, she threw caution to the wind and stepped inside. What she saw defied reason. There was an entire room inside. Monitors and buttons. Stairs that went up and stairs that went down. Doors that lead to, presumably, more rooms and right in the middle was the Doctor sitting, cross-legged, on the floor under a console with cables and her duct tape and a hammer. He was still chattering on about everything under the sun. He finally looked up at her as she gazed about in awe.

"Yes, go ahead, say it." He said.

"It's smaller on the outside." She said with her brow furrowed.

"Yes, I know, wait what?" He asked.

"It's smaller on the outside." She repeated.

He paused and was quiet for the first time since she met him. "Well, yes I guess it is. They just usually say it's bigger on the inside, oh never mind. Emily, you said your name was. Well, Emily, this is my ship. It travels through time and space. It can take you anywhere you want to go. That is if you're interested.”

"You wan't me to come with you? Just like that? I don't even know you." She stated bluntly.

"Well, I can't very well get to know you if you don't come with me." He said, as if this was the most logical thing in the world.

"I have work and, and…”

"And?" He asked.

She looked back out the door at her condo. And? She thought to herself. She looked back at him.

"And...nothing." She responded, just a little bit sad.

He grinned ear to ear and clapped his hands. "Then it's settled. All of time and space. Where do you want to go?" He asked.

"Oh, well I'm not sure. What about my house, and well everything?

"That's the wonderful thing about time machines, dear. We just come back to now. It's like you were never gone.”

She stood for a moment looking back at her home through the doors. What did she have to lose? No husband. No kids. No adventure. Just a house and a job that was slowly crushing her soul, one day at a time.”Alright."

“Alright?"

She grinned. "Alright. Let's know what, wait just one second. I need something before we go. Don't go anywhere.”

She ran out and towards her condo. Where the heck did she leave it? Finally, she saw it on the kitchen table. The light pink journal she bought last week. She grabbed it and ran back out the door, but not before looking back inside her house one last time. She had a seconds pause. She looked back to the blue box with the sliver of light slicing out of the door and cutting across the beach forming a bright line in the sand. There was a small voice in her head that said wait and think this through. She shook her head as though she was trying to shake the voice right out. She was reminded momentarily of Wendy and Peter, when Wendy is standing at the nursery window, wondering if she should go and Peter leans forward and whispers in Wendy's ear. "Forget them Wendy. Forget them all. Come away with me where you'll never, never have to worry about grown up things again." She walked towards the line of light that stretched across the sand from the blue box. She looked down at it and stepped over cautiously as though once she did she knew there was no tuning back, then she ran towards the TARDIS and away from her life as she knew it. She closed the TARDIS door behind her and turned towards the Doctor and grinned.

"Surprise me." She said.

He looked up at her and grinned back. He pushed several buttons and then pulled a large lever.

"Hold on Emily. GERONIMO!”

The whole thing shook. She was thrown into a wall and then tossed across the floor to the other end of the room. She frantically grasped for a bar she saw jutting out of the floor and held on for dear life. As soon as it had started, everything stilled.

"You weren't kidding were you Doctor?" She asked as she pushed the curtain of auburn curls out of her face.

He ignored the question. "Here we are Emmy. Can I call you Emmy? Go ahead. Take a look.”

He gestured towards the door dramatically. She got up off the floor and slowly walked past him. She looked back at him. He nodded reassuringly and she slowly opened it. Her senses were immediately overwhelmed. She squinted from the bright sun. Her eyes slowly began to adjust and images became clearer. She stepped out. The ground beneath her was spongy and teal. She had never seen anything like it. She was surrounded by the most bizarre and beautiful plants she had ever seen in her life and it smelled wonderful. It smelled more like a bakery than any kind of flora and it looked more like something out of a Dr. Suess book that anything she had ever seen on Earth

"It's amazing. Where are we?" She asked completely awe struck.

He stepped up next to her and put his hand in is pockets. "Bellizia. One of the most beautiful planets in the galaxy, and one of the deadliest.”

She turned to him with a mixed look of shock and fear.

"I bring you here to give you the opportunity to make a choice." He was suddenly very serious. "You have agreed to come with me, but my days of whisking someone off into all of time and space without them truly understanding what they are getting into are behind me.”

She saw a flash of something in his eyes. Was it regret? Grief?  
"I can show you amazing things." He gestured to the landscape around him. "But understand, it will not always be safe. The universe has more beauty and danger than I can ever hope to impress upon you.”

He walked up to a particularly beautiful tree that was covered with a climbing vine that roped up into its branches weaving sprays of hanging flowers throughout it. The flowers were every conceivable color, making it look as though it were a living artist's palate. The scent coming off of it was a lovely combination of foreign aromas that beckoned to every cell in her body. The desire to approach it was suddenly overwhelming. The Doctor picked up a small stone, about the size of a strawberry, that was laying near his shoe and tossed it towards the tree. Every vine on the tree lashed out and caught the stone and began to constrict around it until dust fell from between the vines. Then they slowly returned to their original position on the tree, creating again the piece of natural art that was there only seconds before and the Doctor returned to her side.

"You see my dear Emmy, traveling with me means that you will encounter things you never imagined, things that will amaze you. Things that will change your life. Things that will terrify you. Things that very well may try to kill you. But you will also have the time of your life and we will do it all together." He grinned at this. "If you want to go home now I'll understand." He waited quietly, looking into her blue eyes. She was also quiet for a time, but she finally nodded and looked up at him.

"So what you are telling me Doctor, is I can either go back to my life as an accountant and do the exact same thing everyday of my life until I finally get too old to even do that and then die, or I can come with you and have a life of danger and intrigue?”

He grinned. "Yes, basically.”

"So does this thing have a room for me or what?" She grabbed his hand and pulled him back to the TARDIS.

"She's already put one together for you. Up the stairs, down the hall, past the library, behind the pool, and to the left. Should have everything you need.”

She bit her lip and looked up at the staircase.

"Go on." He urged. She ran up the stairs and started searching.

She wasn't sure how this was going to end, but she knew one thing. She was going to have the time of her life.

~

Where to begin? Yesterday's journal entry was about my laundry. I'll just come right out with it. It is safe to say that I have officially lost my mind today. I made one of those decisions that you know for a fact 20 years from now you'll look back on and either think "That was the best decision I ever made" or "Well, that was stupid". The jury is still out on which it will be.

I am laying in my bed, that is in my room, that is in the TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension in Space, he said it stood for. For lack of a better explanation, it is a ship that travels through time and space that is disguised as a big, blue, British police call box. I feel insane even committing this to paper. 

The Cliff Notes version of my day is this blue box fell out of the sky onto the beach behind my condo. A mad man popped out of it and asked if I wanted drop everything and run away with him to go have adventures across the galaxy. I basically responded "Why not?". 

OK, so it was a little more complicated than that, but not by much. There was just something about this man though. The Doctor. He doesn't even have a proper name. He's probably going to kill me and eat my face. Ugh! This is probably the point where I leave a message for whoever finds my journal to tell my family I loved them. That I lost my mind on the beach and ran away and now I'm a skin lamp, but I totally loved them. 

Well, here's to hoping for the best, but because I am me, expecting the worst. Funny thing is, I don't really care what happens. Anything has to be better that what I was doing. Coasting. That's what I was doing. The problem is, I've realized, the only way to coast for any length of time you have to be going down hill. I can't accept that. This is all far too extraordinary to walk away from.

~

Today was Emily's 27th birthday. She had been made partner at the firm. Her coworkers were taking her out for drinks tonight and she would have to socialize for a couple hours with all of them. She had tried desperately to get out of it. Her boss had insisted, and she wasn't so stupid as to say no to the old puffer fish. She also knew that she would spend the majority of the night fending off Sam's advances and then driving the girls home after they indulged in one too many shots of Patron. Yay.

She found it all so exhausting. Pretending she was happy was almost more than she could do most days. Everyday since she woke up on her couch that morning was just one more day she waited to go to sleep in the hopes she might dream of her Doctor. If she could just see his face while she slept, she thought she could keep going just a little longer.

She was shocked to realize that it had all ended the way it did. No goodbye. No "See ya round kid." Nothing. One minute she was holding onto the console of the TARDIS for dear life, hoping to survive a super nova and the next she was waking up in her living room. It had only been hours since the moment she left with him that night he crashed on her beach. She had been with him for nearly three years though.

She had sobbed for hours once she realized he had left her. She couldn't wrap her brain around it. It was over. Everything they had been through. Every moment they had shared. Done. She was completely unprepared, because she never really thought about this outcome. She just always thought it would be her and her Doctor.

She cried and cried until there was not an ounce of tears left. Her heart was broken and in this moment she knew she would never really be the same. She sat up and wiped her face. Then she did something she would later come to realize was the beginning of the end of her living and the start of her simply existing. She stood up and proceeded to do laundry as though nothing had happened.

She had become more and more numb ever since. She knew there were certain expectations of her. Go to work. Smile and make small talk. Get up everyday and make herself look like she was a functioning member of society. Inside, though, she was broken and she knew that if she allowed herself to feel everything that she had turned off that night she cried for the last time in two years, she would fall into the abyss. It was an abyss that she had carefully avoided everyday since. It wasn't a risk she was willing to take, because she was afraid if she fell in she might not ever climb back out. So she chose not to feel. It was just easier that way.

It also meant, though, that she would never really feel about anyone, the way she felt about him again. That thought should break her heart, but it didn't. She would never give her heart to anyone else like that again for one simple reason. It was only ever his to begin with.

She remembered the day she realized she had fallen in love with him. They had had a particularly ugly run in with some Daleks, the Doctor's mortal enemy that looked comically like a pepper shaker. A pepper shaker that had no qualms with indiscriminately exterminating every living creature in it's path. The Doctor was in a verbal confrontation with the wretched thing. For one horrible moment she thought that the Dalek was going to kill him where he stood. What she didn't anticipate, was the realization that, had she not been being held in a cell watching on, she would have gladly shielded him with her body if it meant saving him. The thought terrified her, but the thought of something happening to him terrified her more.

She loved him. She had fallen hopelessly and irrevocably in love with him and she had never once told him. That was, admittedly, the greatest regret of her life. If she ever saw him again, if only for a moment, she would tell him. Damn the consequences. If she had learned anything throughout this whole fiasco it was that she didn't want to live with regret. If she ever got the chance, she would look him straight in the eyes and tell him that there never was and never would be any man that ever held her heart the way he did. She just needed him to know and that would be enough. No matter the response. No matter the outcome. It would just be enough that he know that he was loved.

Until that day came, if it came, she would wait. She would exist. She would get up, get dressed, and go to work. She would come home and do laundry and clean the house. She would humor acquaintances and go through the motions, because she had to. Because the world didn't stop spinning just because her's had come crashing down.

~

The Doctor told me about Gallifrey today. I asked him what the symbols on the monitor meant and he told me that it was Gallifreyan, the language of his people. I had never seen anything so lovely. Beautiful groupings of different size circles, flowing together like sea bubbles. I asked him what it was like there, in Gallifrey. He told me about it's silver leafed trees and burnt orange sky and of it's fields of red grass and it's second sun. 

A look crossed his face unlike any I had ever seen. He looked so grief-stricken, it nearly took the breath clean out of me. It was as though, for just a second, every burden of his over 900 year existence flashed in his eyes. Then he told me of the time war. He told me that he was the last of the Time Lords and that they were all dead because of him. He became very still and he looked off into the distance at something I couldn't see. Memories perhaps, and for the first time since I had known the Doctor, he was quiet. Really and truly quiet. 

I did the only thing I knew how to do. I marched right up to him and wrapped my arms around him. I just held him. He stiffened for a second and then I felt his arms wrap around me. He held me back. I don't know how he expected me to react. I didn't ask him any other questions. I just held him and listened to his hearts beat in his chest. Finally, he pulled away, grabbed my face with both hands and placed a chaste kiss on my forehead. He looked into my eyes and nodded as if to acknowledge the understanding that has passed between us. The understanding that he had given me just a little piece of him that few others in the universe had possessed. The understanding that under all of his brilliance, all of his charm there was a man that hurt more than almost anyone, a man that truly understood what it meant to be alone. 

~

May 17, 2006

I've been traveling with the Doctor for almost three months now. We've fallen into sort of a rhythm. Sometimes we don't even have to talk. I've never experienced anything like it in my life. We just fit. It's comfortable. Like when you first crawl into bed after a long, tiring day. It's still you. Nothing has changed, but you are suddenly much more comfortable. That's what the Doctor is for me. 

I realized something the other day, and it scares me to no end. I trust him implicitly. The ramifications of that are staggering when I consider some of the things I've discovered about him in the time I've known him. He is absolutely awe inspiring, brilliant, and, if I am going to be completely honest, terrifying. 

I didn't realize it at first. The first couple weeks I was with him he was simply fascinating. I had never had more plain, simple fun in my life. We visited alien planets and traveled through time. I met Mark Twain and listened to the Gettysburg address. I saw the stars and kissed John Lennon. Everything about him was spectacular.

After I began to settle in though, I began to realize how much I was handing over to him without so much as a second thought. This was a very powerful man. He could have left me at anyone of these places or times, forcing me to live out the rest of my life millions of miles or millions of years away from home. No one would even know where I was. I was trusting him to keep me safe and at his side. I was trusting him to keep me safe and at his side. Given the right situation, there is no way I could keep up with him. His binary circulatory system and respiratory bypass system would allow him to survive in any number of situations much longer than I could. Why would he risk that? I was trusting him to do just that.

I've never given myself so completely to anyone, and it terrifies me. It doesn't change the fact that I do trust him, but I know that if, for some unforeseen reason the situation changes, I could end up a very broken person. I would be lost and alone. That is, assuming, I even survived it. 

~

"Doctor! I'm over here!" Emmy screamed out.

He ran to her side. "Are you OK?”

"I'm fine, I think. I had just stopped to admire some of the strange butterflies on a log we passed and the ground fell out from under me and I ended up down here.”

"Rule number one, Emmy, Don't wander off." He chastised.

" I know, I know." She waved at him dismissively. "Ow. I think something stung me." She raised her forearm to examine the offending sensation.

He grabbed her by the wrist and pointed his sonic screwdriver at the spot she had begun to scratch. The familiar buzzing echoed off the walls of the small cavern that they now crouched in. He raised it to his eyes and examined the readings. "Oh no, no, no." He grimaced.

"What, what, what? Why are you concerned? I don't like it when you're concerned. That usually means I should be panicking.”

"We should get you back to the TARDIS." He picked her up into his arms. She always seemed to forget how strong he was.

"I can walk Doctor. I'm not hurt. It's just a bug bite." She protested.

He tightened his hold on her. "No. It'll just speed up it's circulation in your system. I'm so sorry, Emmy." He was running her back to the TARDIS now. "It's not just any bug bite dear. You've been stung by a Primean Cave Mite.”

"A mite? Like a dust mite?" She was getting annoyed now. She felt fine.

"A bit yes, but instead of looking like a microscopic flea, they look more like a scorpion with fangs. Oh and while they are harmless to me, considering my high metabolism, they are most definitely not harmless to you." He shoved past the TARDIS doors roughly and carried her to the medibay. He gently laid her on the gurney.

"Is it fatal?" She asked, finally looking scared.

"Fatal. Oh no. Not at all." He was digging through drawers and cabinets frantically. "It's only a powerful hallucinogen that, if not treated with the antidote in a timely fashion, will result in, well, madness.”

"Madness?! I...Doctor. I don't feel well." Her eyes fluttered shut and her body went limp.

Panic filled her. She started screaming. "Doctor!" She couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. She wanted to shut her eyes and she couldn't. She couldn't bare to watch. Not her Doctor. If she could just get to him. If she could just...She couldn't think anymore.

Nothing was clear. She was terrified. Why was she terrified? Where was the Doctor? Why couldn't she move? How long had she been like this?

Everything started to focus again. "Emmy?" Was that him?

Why couldn't she see him yet? Everything was too bright. "Emmy? Can you hear me?”

She could start to make the outline of a face. His face. "That's it dear. Open your eyes. Are you OK Emmy?”

“Doctor?"

"Yes. It's me. You're OK. You're safe. I'm here Emmy.”

She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. "Oh Doctor! It was horrible! How long was I out?”

"Five minutes tops. I was afraid I wouldn't find the antidote in time. It had been so long since I had come across one of the little beasts, but I found it and was able to administer the shot before any real damage was done.”

"Five minutes!? It felt like weeks! I...you...it was horrible." She began to stammer and cry.

"Oh Emmy. I know dear." He sat on the gurney and pulled her into his arms. "I'm so sorry. It's not just any hallucinogen. It makes you live out your greatest fears. I was hopping to get the antidote in your system before you experienced any of that, but I wasn't quick enough. I'm so sorry." He petted her hair and kissed the top of her head. He rested his cheek on her head then and just rocked her. He rocked her until her breathing slowed and resumed a calmer cadence.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked hesitantly.

She sniffed and sat up. She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. "No, Doctor. You know, I can see why you share so little of your past with others. I see it in your eyes. Seeing your greatest fears is bad enough without having to repeat them for others to hear.”

She squeezed his hand and kissed his cheek. "I won't even begin to try to compare your losses, to what was essentially a nightmare on my part, but if I cannot bare to tell you what I saw, well, you are a far stronger man than I even knew.”

He looked at her, brow furrowed. “Emmy."

She shook her head at him, not allowing him to finish. "Doctor, I'd like to go to bed now if that's OK. Would you sit with me until I fall asleep. I know it's childish but…"

It was he who stopped her this time. He stood up and took her hand. "Come on, Emmy.”

He walked her up the stairs and to her bedroom. He sat by her bed that night and every night after, until she fell asleep. They never discussed it. It just became part of what they did. Part of their routine. Some nights, right before sleep overtook her, she was sure she heard him whisper "I'm sorry, my dear Emmy. I'm so sorry.”

~

We've been traveling for over two years now. It's hard to believe. It's so surreal sometimes. Sometimes I'm afraid that I will go to sleep and wake up back at home, right where I left off, like a dream.

I can't imagine any other life, though. I don't think I'd really want another life. I've realized that I'd follow him to the ends of the universe. That's the scary thing, really. I've spent more time running for my life since I met him than I ever dreamed was possible, but I've never worried. As long as I had him, I always believed I would be ok. Logically, I know otherwise. I never listen to that little voice though. It's like my life has been reduced to one fear... losing him. 

The truth is, I guess, is that I'm angry. Angry that that is my only fear. Where does that leave me? That is more power that I ever thought I would give someone. I'm a little ashamed of it as well. I realize I have given someone the power to hurt me that deeply, and I don't know how to turn it off. I never thought I'd be that girl. 

I've no delusions about him, though. I am a bit proud of that. I've been with him long enough to see him falter. Well, no one else would see it, but I can tell now. I've realized he doesn't always have a plan. I've watched him fly by the seat of his pants. It's those moments that I know that there is no going back. That nano-second that my brain processes the situation and says, 'Ok, he's got no plan and my chance of survival is minimal,' and I just grin and follow him anyway. That's the moment I know this is it. This is all there is. The moment I think, ' I don't care'. 

There's another thing that bothers me a little. He's been at this so long, I think it's hard for it all to not run together. I think he needs us to see things again as if for the first time. 

I think he needs us to keep him kind. 

I've seen the rage and guilt that lives just under the surface of the finely created veneer he has put in place over the centuries. I think that if something were to crack that, and give it the opportunity to bubble up to the surface, the fallout could be catastrophic. I think that he keeps us around to have a reason to keep it in place. 

Also, I think, well, he's just so... lonely. It saddens me a little when I think of it. He could have picked anyone in the universe to travel with. Anyone. But a random ship malfunction landed him at my backdoor. Nothing but pure and simple chance. One small variable and it would have been some other girl on some other beach. I try not to think of it. It breaks my heart just a little bit. I was one misplaced jammy dodger away from never meeting the man that would forever change my life, forever change my heart. 

Although, I suppose that's not any different than any other chance meeting with any number of other people. Any number of people that I could have, potentially, fallen in love with. But, I didn't fall in love with any person. 

I fell in love with him. 

This impossible man. This wonderful, amazing, lost, broken man. 

If I am to be completely honest (one should be in their journal), there is a small part of me, the practical survivor part of me, that wishes I had fallen in love with one of the many people that had walked in and out of my life before him. It would have been so much simpler. I' d be married, maybe a kid on the way. Mortgage. Bills. Same cold feet every night in the same bed, in the same room, in the same life till we fell asleep one night and didn't wake up. 

I think I might be content. 

I wouldn't have had anything to compare it to. I would have accepted that it was my existence. My simple life with a simple man. I can't know, but it can't possibly compare to this.

It couldn't possibly hurt as much as this. 

Knowing the only man I'll ever love, the only man that will ever make me believe that anything is possible as long as I'm with him, is in the same ship with me and I can never tell him. I can never let him know that when he smiles my whole world is perfect, and when he grieves I want to run through the whole galaxy to find anyway to piece his broken world back together. I can't ever tell him that I want to spend the rest of my forever protecting the pieces of his broken heart. I can't let him know that he has forever woven his way into my heart, because I know he would never allow himself the freedom to love me, and losing him in my life, even if only like this, would break me. 

He is, without question, my very best friend, and if I have to hold this in my heart to keep his hand in mine, I will. I never understood how true love could hurt, but the truth is, there is not always a happy ending. The boy doesn't always get the girl. Sometimes, just the gift of their friendship has to be enough. Sometimes, love has to happen in between glances instead of in between of kisses.

~

"You ever seen a super nova Emmy?”

She chuckled. "Yes Doctor. I watched them all the time back home. So boring...No you dummy. Of course I haven’t."

"Would you like to?" He waggled his eyebrows at her.

"It's a date." She smirked.

"Excellent!" He returned to the console and began to push buttons and pull levers in the same frantic dance that alway preceded an adventure.

The TARDIS shook and spun. She held on for dear life. Same as always and then everything stilled.

He held his hand out to her the same way he always did. She always wished she knew what he was thinking when he did. She didn't know if he was anxious to stun her with whatever he knew lay outside the TARDIS doors or if he was just a little concerned that this might be the time she didn't take his hand, but she always did. She knew in her heart, that there was never really any other option. She'd always take his hand, no matter where he took her.

He led her outside. A bleak wasteland lay before her. Barren dirt as far as the eye could see. No buildings. No people. No lights, save that same ribbon of light that flowed out of the open TARDIS door like the yellow brick road.

"I know, it's not terribly impressive, but it's the light show we're after", and he pointed to the sky behind them.

She spun around, her boots pivoting in the grey sand. She could not prevent the small gasp that she made as her breath was taken away. It was the most stunning sight she had ever beheld in her life and they had a front row seat. A fiery orb woven of flowing rivers of fire hung in the inky sky before them. Iridescent wisps of light danced around it, swirling and sparkling. It was almost as though this star knew that these were it's last moments, it's pièce de résistance.

"A star is at it's most lovely just before it goes. The supernova remnant is a sight to see as well, but these last moments are without compare.”

She gazed up at the sight before her. She took his hand and together, they witnessed the last moments of this force of nature that had existed far longer than she could comprehend.

"All thing's come to an end Emmy. Stars are a perfect example of that. They burn for billions of years, surviving everything that crosses their path, and then one day the core of the aging star undergoes a gravitational collapse and poof." He pantomimed an explosion with his hands.

“Poof?"

“Poof."

"Isn't the Big Bang how everything started though? It doesn't really end does it? Sometimes isn't it just the start of some other amazing thing?”

He locked eyes with her, grinning. He stared at her with that look, the look that made her feel like the only person in the universe, the look that she knew was her undoing. He threw his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. "Oh Emmy! You fantastic girl you! You can see it! You can always see it! Oh, you are magnificent!”

“What?"

He pulled back and stared back up at the sky. Perhaps it was not the look that was her undoing, but the moment it always ended. The moment she was reminded that she was not the only person in his universe. The moment his eyes went dark again. "When you are as old as I am, you can forget what it looks like.”

"What what looks like?”

"Emmy, do you remember when you were little and you could play dress up and in your mind you could see it all? You would go outside and the garden was a jungle and the cupboard in the kitchen was an impenetrable fortress. Then one day you got just old enough, that pretend seemed silly and you realized that you just couldn't see it anymore and your heart broke just a little bit because you knew there was no way you could ever get that completely back?

"When you are as old as me, you just can't see it anymore. But," he turned back to her as she watched him push the darkness back below the surface "you can see it, and when you see it, for a minute I can see it again too. You give that back to me for just a bit. For just a small, wonderful moment, I can see the magic of the universe again." He made a small, sad smile.

"Doctor, I cannot possibly be telling you one thing you do not already know.”

"No, but you show me what I can no longer feel.”

He kissed the top of her head again. She felt the warmth of his breath in her hair and smelled him all around her. That smell that was distinctly her Doctor. He smelled like the TARDIS and adventure and jammy dodgers and old books. It enveloped her like a warm blanket. She felt she could stay in his embrace forever. It was intoxicating. That was when he pulled away. That was always when he pulled away. It was as though he knew she was on the precipice of falling head first into something she wouldn't be able to crawl out of. He wouldn't have been wrong.

"Well dear, we best be on our way. Can't be standing here when it goes. Massive levels of radiation and all of that. Let's go ahead and park out there." He pointed to the sky behind them. "Much much much further out." He clapped his hands together and she followed him into the TARDIS.

She sat at the console seat and waited for him to work the magic that he always did on the controls. She had been waiting much longer than usual when he finally spoke up. "Well...that's...not ideal.”

"Not ideal? What's wrong doctor?”

"Weeeellll..." He drug out the word the way he does when he's trying to avoid saying something unpleasant.

"Doctor." She said with her hands on her hips.

"Well. It seems the combination of the magnetic pull present in the planet's core and the radiation already being emitted from the instability in the star has, for lack of a better term, made the controls all wonky.”

"Wonky, Doctor? What does that mean?”

"It means I need to make some adjustments before we can take off.”

"Oh OK. Well get to it.”

"It's not that simple dear. Based on the TARDIS' calculations, we have approximately two hours before the thing blows and I have about two and a half hours worth of repairs. It won't be a problem for me. This level of radiation is nothing to a Time Lord's body. You however..." A look of immense grief fell over his face.

"Doctor? What? What does that mean?" She asked beginning to panic.

"I...it's not good.”

"It's not good? Damn it Doctor? What in the hell does that mean? Out with it!”

"As a human, you are very limited in the levels of radiation that your body can withstand. A supernova would emit levels far higher than you could tolerate." He was speaking so quietly now that she could just barely hear him.

She was quiet for a moment before she looked up at him. "Well, you better get to work on it, because I have no plans on being burnt to a crisp today. That's your thing. The impossible. Get to it." She barked at him with her hands on her hips again.

He stared at her for a moment, and finally nodded and began the frantic, dance that he did when the odds were against him and he didn't have any idea how he was going to solve this impossible task that lay before him. All the while, everyone around him thought he had it under control. She knew better though. She had seen him do this a hundred times before on a hundred other planets with a hundred other problems. Somehow it always came out in the end, but what she knew that everyone else didn't was that it was usually shear dumb luck. Something would happen that bought them just a little more time, or the huge gamble the Doctor was making somehow paid off. Very rarely was it all part of the plan. She always feared, in the back of her mind, the day that it didn't all come together. That the Doctor was not able to fix something in the nick of time.

She followed him around handing him things like a surgeon's assistant. He would mumble calculations under his breath and she would dig for the next item she thought he might need. An hour had passed at this point. He was tugging at a large mass of wires that seemed to be held together with duct tape. She wondered for a moment if it was her duct tape that she had given him that day on the beach. The day that her whole life had changed. Funny, that the thing that would always remind her of the day that the love of her life stumbled into her's was a roll of dollar store duct tape.

She chanced a glance at him. His shoulders hung and he ran his hands through his hair. She walked up to him an placed her hand on his shoulder. She crossed her legs and sat down in front of him. He looked up into her eyes and she saw tears in his. "I'm so sorry Emmy. I can't do it. I'll never get us out of here in time.”

"Doctor don't say that. I have faith in you.”

"Well you shouldn't!" He glared at her. She had never seen him like this. His voice dripped with rage, but the only thing she saw in his face was terror.

"And why not Doctor?! Because you're not perfect? I know you're not! If anyone knows that, I do. I never expected you to be. But the one thing I do know you are is a good man. A good man that never gives up. I've always loved that about you." Her breath was staggered and her chest heaved. Her hands were clenched at her side.

"Emily, I am not a good man." He was looking manic now. His face was contorted with emotion. "I am far from good. I am selfish. Above all things, in all these centuries, I am selfish. I am the last of my kind. By my own hands, I am alone. That is my punishment, but I am too selfish to accept my fate. I bring you along. You're not the first, but you know that. I whisk you off on these adventures and you are all so enchanted by the grandeur of it all. Your human minds lack the ability to process the enormity of the universe. You have no choice, but to be awestruck and amazed by all of it. You all fall hopelessly in love with the whole experience, and I know that, but I bring you anyway because I love the way you look when you try to take it all in. It's like when I was little and about to look into the untempered schism. The wonder of it all. When I'm with you, it's like for just a moment I can almost feel that again. Standing there, Gallifrey all around me and even it seemed small by comparison. Do you know what that's like Emily? To know you can never have any of that again, and have the reminder of it just out of your reach, in sight. It's like a drug and damn the consequences to all of you if I can just have that for a second. Why do you think I rarely travel with anyone, but humans? They see it. I'm not a good man, Emily. I'm lost.”

He looked defeated now, exposed, and in that moment she realized that this was the first time he had said any of this out loud. She threw both her arms around him and held him to her so tightly she thought she might not be able to breathe.

"Yes you are, Doctor. I have no delusions about who you are. I never have. You're hurt, and broken. You live with a grief and guilt that I cannot ever begin to comprehend. I know you also have your share of blood on your hands. I've never tried to deny that about you. However, I have watched you put yourself on the line more times than I can count for individuals all over the universe. I've seen you save countless people and planets. I'll never know the details of the Time War. I don't need to. The fact of the matter is, you made a choice. You could have crawled into the abyss and let the grief overtake you, let it cripple you, but you didn't. You stood up and did what had to be done. You moved forward. You kept on. You don't always get it right, but no one does. You are a flawed being with a tragic past and you are doing the best you can with the tools you have. In that respect, you are more human that you realize, and I think that is spectacular. Good men are not perfect men. Good men are flawed men that try to do what's right. So yes Doctor, you are a good man and you won't ever convince me otherwise. In fact, you are one of the best men I've ever known. So, I've watched you attempt the impossible for hundreds of others on hundreds of other planets. I'm just asking you to do the same for me. I'm not asking you to succeed. I'm just asking you to not give up.”

He looked down at her, his face so childlike. "It's not that I'm giving up Emmy. It's that I know if I fail, I lose you and I think it might just kill me.”

She stared up into his eyes. She wanted to say something, anything, that could convey to him what she was feeling in this moment. She wanted to tell him that she loved him. All of him. The good, the broken. She wanted to say that she would give anything to take his pain away. More than anything, she wanted to kiss him. They stood that way for a moment, just on the precipice of allowing the moment to take them. In the end, it was Emily that stepped back from the edge they were teetering on.

"Well then what's next?”

" I won't finish in time, but there is one last thing I can do.”

"Out with it.”

"I have what's called a chameleon arch. It is designed to rewrite every cell in your body to completely convert you into another species. I could convert you into a species that could tolerate the high levels of radiation and ensure your survival.”

"Well why didn't you say that earlier you big oaf?!”

"It's not that simple dear. The process is extremely painful and could damage your neural functions, specifically the ones dedicated to memory. I've never tried it on a human before. The results are unpredictable at best.”

She didn't even bat an eye. "I trust you.”

"Why Emily?! It could kill you!”

"I'm as good as dead anyway Doctor. Look. I always knew something like this was a possibility. You didn't let me go into this blindly, remember. If I'm gonna go, I'd just as soon it be at your side. For no other reason than you are my best friend and who doesn't want to be surrounded by the people they love at a time like that. I plan to go out fighting. If this is even remotely possible then we're gonna try. If I learned anything from you it was to believe in the impossible. Now how do we do this?”

He led her over to a seat near the console and pulled a device down from the mass of wires that was directly above her head. He placed it on either side of her temples.

"Emmy are you sure?”

"Yes Doctor. Just do it.”

He nodded and started adjusting dials.

"Doctor, out of curiosity, what are you changing me to?”

He cracked a small, almost undetectable smile at this. "Time Lord of course.”

" I guess that'll do." She grinned at him.

"Are you ready?”

"Ready as I'll ever be." She nestled further into her seat, preparing for what was to come. "Wait Doctor.”

"What is it?”

"I just. If I don't, you know. Well I just want you to know that..." She sighed. "this was the best. OK? No matter what happens, no regrets OK? Good and bad, this was the best. I want you to know that...I wouldn't change a thing." She gave him a small smile and breathed a small prayer.

His brow furrowed. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. Then he pressed a button and everything went black.

When she came to everything was shaking fiercely. She had a splitting headache and all she could see was the Doctor running around pressing buttons and pulling levers, looking more disheveled than she had ever seen him before. She was suddenly tossed out of her seat and she rolled across the TARDIS floor.

"Doctor! What is going on?!”

"Ahh! You're up. We lucked out dear. Where was a serendipitous momentary decrease in the radiation levels being emitted by the star. I was able to stop your conversion and get this old girl off the ground." He said lovingly patting the control panel before everything started to shake violently again.

"Where are we?”

"That's the tricky part love. Still trying to navigate out of the surrounding area. We're not out of the woods yet!”

The whole ship did what felt like a summersault. Emily reached frantically or anything to hold onto. Suddenly she felt a sharp pain blast onto the back of her head and everything went black again.

She slowly opened her eyes. Pain filled them as they tried to accommodate the bright light that assaulted them. Her head throbbed and her body ached.

“Doctor?"

She sat up. Where was she? Her eyes started to focus. It was familiar. It was her living room.

 

“Doctor?"

No response. Panic started to envelope her. “Doctor!"

Nothing.

No. No. No.

She started running through the house searching for him. Maybe he was just upstairs. Nothing. She ran out onto the beach. Nothing. She fell to her knees in the sand and tried to make the pain in her chest subside. She tried to breathe. She tried to think. She couldn't do any of it. She was gasping and finally the tears came. The tears came and threatened to never stop because she knew. Deep down she knew that he had left her. She knew why he had left her. His guilt was his greatest driving force. The love of her life had done what he thought would save her life. The only problem was that, without him, it wasn't a life she wanted to live. He was gone and she was alone.

She wasn't sure how long she had sat on the beach, staring at the sand. She could still see, so vividly, him stumbling out of the TARDIS, that grin on his face. She could hear his voice. She rocked herself with her arms around her chest, an unconscious attempt to hold together her shattered heart.

The sun had stated to set out over the water. The rose colored streams of light cutting through the clouds pulled her out of her daze. Her throat stung from sobbing. Her chest ached. Her face felt stiff from the tears that had dried to her cheeks. She sighed. She was at a loss. She climbed to her feet and began to walk back to the house. She glanced down at the coffee table. Her pink journal lay there, it's cover and pages now worn with three years of use. She picked it up and held it close. She flipped through the pages and the smell of the TARDIS filled her lungs. Her breath caught in her throat. She set it down and took a step back. She took slow and measured breaths. She tried to clear her mind. She had a choice to make. Fall into the abyss or move forward and live. One terrified her and one broke her heart, so she opted to do neither. She did the only thing she had the strength to do, turn everything off. It hurt to much to grieve. She didn't have the strength to try and move on. She could, however, breathe in an out. She could push through the tasks of living. She knew she was strong enough for that. Maybe someday, she would be brave enough to try to feel, but until then she could at lease exist. That would just have to be enough for now.

~

Why do you not run, human?”

"I have no reason to. You intend to kill me and I do not fear death.”

This was how Emily came to find herself on the beach all these years later. Their beach. The Maquillian soldier bent down and picked up her journal. She looked up at him, his teal eyes boring into her. She shrugged and looked back out over the water.

"You say you do not fear death, human, but what of your Doctor? Do you fear his death? When he arrives, we will kill him and you shall be forced to watch.”

"He's not coming.”

"What makes you so sure?”

"I know my Doctor. Once he has made a decision, there is little that can change his mind.”

The soldier smirked. "So he has abandoned you here?”

This stung more than she anticipated, but she didn't let it show. "My Doctor is a smart man. He understands, better than most, the idea of making sacrifices for the greater good. I have faith that he understands that my death is of little consequence in the grand scheme of the universe, and if not returning to save me keeps him alive, then that is what is important. The universe would not shed one tear at the loss of my life. It would, however, weep at the loss of his.

"I hope you realize what you are doing, going after the Doctor. A great many people owe him a great many debts. If you succeed in killing the Doctor, you will make more enemies than you can even begin to fathom." She was standing now, eye to eye with the Maquillian soldier. "I am but one human, and I would gladly lay down my life to save his. Imagine all of the beings he has encountered in all the years of all his travels that share my convictions. This is perhaps not your most well thought out plan.”

"You speak too freely, human.”

"I speak the truth.”

The soldier began to flip through her journal. "Be that as it may, I think I shall have some light reading while we wait." Several other soldiers approached and forced her into a kneeling position.

"Tsk tsk tsk." The leader approached her again. "It seems more than friendship crossed your mind during your travels with him, human." He continued flipping through the journal.

"I won't deny it. It's irrelevant though.”

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Let's see if we can't hurry this process along, shall we?”

He pulled out a gun that was in the holster at his hip and pointed it towards her and pulled the trigger. A small blast of light hit the sand just inches from her knee, leaving a blast shaped glass formation in it's wake.

"That should register as hostile alien activity in his ship. If he cares so much about Earth, he is likely monitoring for just this sort of thing." He smirked.

It was quiet for some time. Emily closed her eyes and started picturing him again. It wouldn't be long now. They would tire of waiting, realize she wasn't the bargaining chip they had hoped for, and kill her. If she really focused she could almost hear that familiar noise the TARDIS made when it materialized. She could hear it more and more clearly, the longer she focused. Perhaps her body knew that she was about to die and was giving her this last fantasy. One last comfort. It sounded so real. Then she heard a click. There was only one thing in the universe that made that click. It was the sound of a TARDIS door opening.

Her eyes shot open. There it was. That great blue box, and there, stumbling out of the front of it was her Doctor

"Hello Emmy.”

~

No words were remotely sufficient for what she was feeling at this moment, though she doubted she could have said anything if she tried. She felt the tears streaming down her cheeks, a fountain of grief and relief and anger and hope and love. They were the tears you shed when you are reunited with the one person who has the power to break you when they are gone. They were the tears she had refused to shed since the day she had decided to stop feeling.

He grinned ear to ear and started to approach her. She felt her chest constrict.

"Uh uh uh." The Maquillian soldier stopped him. "As sweet as this reunion is, I believe we have more pressing matters. We have a debt to settle, Doctor.”

The doctor turned to him as though he was just now even registering his presence. The Doctor placed his hands in his pockets and eyed the soldier up and down.

"Matters to attend to, yes. We do have matters to attend to, but I must say, there is no debt to pay. It was most tragic that the Admiral was killed, but I can assure you that I had nothing to do with his assassination.”

"The audacity!" The soldier started.

The Doctor raised a finger to interrupt him. "The Admiral was killed by a man that was hurting very much. He had lost many loved ones in the wars between your planets. A resolution can be reached. A peace that could stand as the model for the entire galaxy could be forged, if only you would take the first step. The Maquillians are a strong people and could be even greater if you would move past this. Let Emily go. She has no part in these matters.”

The soldier waved his hand at the Doctor dismissively. "She has everything to do with this, Doctor. Despite your assertions to the contrary, you had everything to do with the assassination of the Admiral of the Royal Guard. It's really quite simple. You see, that is the thing about you Doctor. You may never kill anyone directly, but there are so many in the universe that would do anything for you. You never would have to kill, would you? You know this Doctor. The man that killed the Admiral was indeed hurting. I will not deny this. I have lost loved ones in battle. I am well acquainted with the sentiment. However, he admired you so. He felt that by assassinating the Admiral, not only would it satisfy a misguided sense of justice, but he felt it would serve you. Did you not read his statements after the assassination, or was that too much to ask Doctor? He told delegates that he was finishing the work you were doing there.”

"Those were the convictions of a very sick man." The Doctor said simply, though his eyes betrayed the fact that he knew there was some truth in the Maquillian's words.

"Do you feel no responsibility, Doctor, for the people that would kill for you? No responsibility for the people that would die for you? You must be stopped Doctor. You wield far too much power. Surely, at your age you realize this? Surely you understand that this cannot be allowed.”

The Doctor stood quietly. He made no move to contradict him.

"Doctor, this has gone on too long. The question here, is not that of your guilt. That is self evident. The question is to whom do you answer, Doctor? Who governs you? I am here today to see that justice is served. I am here to see to it you answer for all of the blood that is on your hands.”

Emily could no longer watch this. She stood up. "Please stop this. I beg of you, let him go. Take me.”

The soldier turned back to her and regarded her again is if he had forgotten she was there, a discarded pawn in this game that was so much bigger than her. "Human, you act as though you have a say in the matter. While your life is hardly compensation for his, you were always the one that I planned on killing. You see, I never had any intention of killing the Doctor. I think death would be far too compassionate. I intended to teach him a lesson he would never forget. Now," he picked up her journal "I believe we shall have a little show and tell before we commence with the festivities. I think there are some things the Doctor should hear before he watches you die.”

He held out her journal to her. It was turned to her last entry. "Read it." The soldier commanded.

She shook her head. She was whispering now. "No. Please don't ask me to do that.”

His smile curled wickedly. "Read him the entry or I really will kill him. I want him to suffer more than I want him dead, but I could just as easily kill him if you'd like, but his blood would be on your hands girl." He raised a gun to the Doctor's head.

"No!" Her hands her shaking as she raised the journal up to read. "I'll read, just let him live.”

"That's better.”

She paused, thoughtful, silent tears streaming down her face.

"I'm sorry, Doctor. You are too important. I can't let you die." He saw the pain in her face.

"Don't do it Emmy. Let her go! Take me. We can come to an agreement!”

"Doctor, the time for negotiations are through. Read human, or watch your precious Doctor die. His blood will be on your hands. Read him your last entry. The one you just finished writing as you heard us walking up the beach.”

She looked down at the pages of her journal, now marked with her tears. She looked up at him again. She drank in every inch of him, knowing this was the last time she would ever see this impossible man, her impossible man, the love of her life.

"I'm sorry, Doctor. I'm so sorry.”

She looked back down at the journal and began to read.

“So this is how it ends. Funny really. I guess I always knew. It' s no surprise that I am sitting on this beach. Our beach. Alone and waiting for that noise. That wonderful noise. The only noise in the universe that can make me run towards it because it means home. It means that the love of my life has just shown up and he wants me to run like hell. I would too. I'd run anywhere with that man.

She ventured a look up at him. She wished she hadn't, because she had never seen him looked so pained in her life. But, she was saving his life. That is what mattered. She was doing what she had to do. She she took a deep breath, gathering the strength to continue, and dropped her eyes back to the journal.

"Any normal girl would not think of that as her ideal day, but I am no ordinary girl. I am the Doctor's companion and I have, in the great tradition of his companions, fallen completely and utterly in love with him. It's the most hopeless thing in the world. We all think we will spend forever with him, but he leaves us all in the end.

She choked through this last bit. She didn't dare look up because she knew how badly she was hurting him. Despite all of the emotions that came flooding back at the very sight of him, the truth was that she still loved him and the idea of hurting him was killing her. It would all be over soon, though.

“He continues on his adventures and we are left behind where he found us. Left to try to pick up the pieces. Left to try and figure out how to survive without the man who stole our heart even though he has two of his own.

"I would venture to say that all of his companions have spent enough time on their very own versions of this beach to realize that he is not coming back. He has found a replacement and she will stay with him long enough to have her heart broken when he decides he needs to do the noble thing and bring her home to Earth where it is safe. She will be broken like the rest of us. She will spend the rest of her life hungry and wanting for the man who forever changed her life and then took it away.

She paused and swallowed, took a deep breath and then continued.

"I was only 22 when he took me. I spent three years with him. Three years trusting him with my life. Three years falling for him. Now, I've spent the last three years trying to learn how to live again. The sad truth is, I never really did. I figured out how to exist, but not how to live. This makes me so angry. I never dreamed that I would be that girl. I always scoffed at the very idea that I could love a man so completely and envelope myself so much in him that it would cripple me if he left. I was always a bit proud of myself for that, but it happened. I'm that girl, and I'm so damned angry that I let it happen.

"And yet, when I think of the good times, my heart softens just enough to forget my anger for a moment. I can't hate him. I could never hate him. I will always love that impossible man. I just hate how much it hurts to be without him.

"I found out a month ago that I was being hunted by one of the many enemies that the Doctor has made in his travels. I can't run anymore, not if it's not with him. What's the point? So, I'm going to wait. They will find me and kill me, but until then, I will have this moment on the beach where he left me. I will spend the last moments of my life with him, in my mind. Loving him.”

She closed the journal and forced herself to look up at him, finally. He was crying. "Oh Emmy. My dear Emmy. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wanted to say goodbye. I did. When we landed I looked over and you were laying on the floor of the TARDIS, unconscious. Alive only through shear, dumb luck. It made me sick that I would gamble with your life like that. It made me sick that I had... “

She stopped him, before he could continue. There were few things as painful as watching the Doctor cry. "Please Doctor. Don't. I always knew you had your reasons. It didn't hurt any less, but I never was angry with you. Myself yes, but never with you. Know that. The truth is I loved you so much, there was only ever room for that. It only hurt so much because you were missing. I love you. I wish so much that I had been brave enough to tell you that sooner, but that's it. That's the truth. I love you and I will always love you and I guess, if I'm going to be honest, I always have. I don't care to remember a time when I didn’t."

"Well this is all very touching, but I came to have an execution." The Maquillian kicked her to her knees. He raised his weapon to her temple. "Let this always be a reminder to you Doctor. For the rest of your existence, when you think of her, when you picture her face, may you hear her words and know she died for you. Know you live because of a human that fell in love with you, with the idea of you, and she would have done anything for you. Know that just like every soul you've crossed, she was mesmerized by you and paid the ultimate price. You do answer to someone Doctor. You answer to all of them. May you carry this weight on your conscience and throughout the galaxy." He steadied his hand to fire.

"Emily!" The other soldiers held him back.

"You know what I saw the night I was bitten by the Primean Cave Mite? It was you on the brink of death and I couldn't get to you. That's what I feared the most. That changed, though, Doctor. I know now that everyone dies, even you. My greatest fear now was one of us dying without me getting the chance to tell you that you were the love of my life. There was never any other. I always assumed there would be another opportunity to tell you. You know now, though, so I can go. Please don't cry my love. I want your smile be the last thing I see. That's what I want to take with me. I'm ok. I'm ok because we had this and it was the best.”

She blew him a kiss and smiled. She was still smiling when the soldier pulled the trigger. The last thing she saw was her Doctor's eyes. Those beautiful eyes. The journal fell to the sand and a wail of agony filled the crisp, sea air. The Doctor broke free of the guards and ran to her, collapsing on her lifeless body. He clutched her to his chest and sobbed. He rocked her as though he thought the sheer force of his overwhelming grief could breathe life back into her.

"You will continue to pay your debt, Doctor, every time you think of her face." The soldiers all grasped a small device on their wrists and vanished, returned to their ship, their mission having been completed.

The Doctor didn't even respond. Years ago, his rage would have dictated his actions. Now, though, he just hurt. So, he just held her. "Oh Emmy." He kissed the top of her head. "My Emily. You brave and wonderful girl." He continued to whisper her name with reverence, like a prayer. She lay limp in his arms. A physical testament to what his life had become. He had lost so much in his life, his far too long life. Holding Emily's lifeless body in his arms, it felt as though the wounds of a lifetime had just been ripped back open and were hemorrhaging.

He had been so pleased with himself, too. As much as it had hurt to leave her, he knew that he had to bring her back while she was still alive. She had survived the super nova, but only through shear dumb luck. A momentary decrease in radiation levels had allowed him to get her out of there, and for what? His loneliness? Was he really that selfish that he would risk her life just to satisfy his need to not be alone? Enough was enough. How many companion's lives would he ruin? The Maquillian's weren't wrong. That, maybe, was what hurt the most. Despite, his best efforts, her death was still on his hands.

~

He wasn't sure how long he had been crouched in the sand clinging to her lifeless frame. He didn't know when he had run out of tears. All he knew was that his Emmy was gone. His magnificent girl was gone. He would never hear her laugh again. He would never look up from the control panel of the TARDIS to she her with her hands on her hips and her brow furrowed. That was it. She had died for him. She had willingly sacrificed her existence because she thought she was less important than him. He simply couldn't bare it.

He looked back down at the limp figure in his arms. her face was wet with his tears. He ran his thumb over her cheek and then held her face. He sighed. "Emily. I'm so sorry." He ran his fingers through her hair. He gazed at her a moment before he gently lifted her, stood up, and carried her to the TARDIS for the last time.

He kicked the TARDIS door shut behind him before carrying her to the platform by the controls and carefully laying her down. He sat on the step just below her and leaned over her, an arm on either side of her. He reached up and smoothed down her hair. "One last trip for you my dear.”

The tears that had subsided were threatening to return. He leaned down and kissed her forehead and then rested his cheek on her hair. "I think a return trip to Bellizia is in order. A fitting resting place." The tears began again. "Beautiful and not for the faint of heart. Just like you.”

His cheek was still pressed to her hair when he noticed something strange. An all too familiar golden glow was beginning to swirl around her. He sat up again and took in the sight before him. His hearts stopped. He was too afraid to believe what was happening. He didn't think he could survive hoping and this not being true. The light around her began to intensify and became progressively brighter. He stood up and took two steps back. Emily's every extremity was now radiating powerful beams of light so bright he could barely look upon her. It looked as though she had burst into flames. As quickly as it started, the light subsided and the Doctor cautiously approached the figure before him.

A brand new woman lay where his Emily once was. He crouched down, cautiously, next to her. She was now a taller, much more ginger Emily. He delicately placed a hand on her arm, not daring to believe what he had just witnessed. She had regenerated.

He waited. When she slowly opened her eyes he realized he had been holding his breath. She turned her head and looked at him. “Doctor?"

He smiled and nodded in response.

"What happened?" She asked, trying to get her bearings.

He grabbed her and crushed her to his chest. He was shaking, gasping through sobs.

"Doctor." She mumbled into his chest, but he held fast.

"Doctor! I can't breathe.”

He finally pulled back and got a proper look at her.

"What happened?" She was patting herself down as though she didn't quite believe she was there.

"Well, it looks like you...regenerated. " Tears streaked his face. He was grinning. She had never seen him like this. It was a bit unsettling to see him with so little control over his own emotions. He crushed her to him again. "You regenerated Emily!”

"Come again?" She sat straighter and untangled herself from his grasp. She was surrounded by a mass of ginger curls that looked more like a lion's mane than a head of hair. She tugged at it. "And what the heck is this mess?!”

He cocked his head to one side. "New hair. New everything really.

But how? Did this happen the night of the supernova? I thought you said you stopped the process.”

"I thought I had. I guess the TARDIS had other plans.”

"Other plans? You mean it just kept right on with the process, after you thought you had stopped it?”

He thought for a moment and smiled. "Sometimes the TARDIS has a mind of its own. It doesn't always do what I tell it to do, but it has a funny knack for doing what I need it to do.”

"What did you need it to do?" She asked softly.

He sat there looking at her, thoughtful for a moment, then he made a sort of half smile and softly laughed to himself. "I guess I didn't know. The TARDIS clearly thought I needed..." He paused. "Emily, the night I left you I had every intention of saying goodbye. The honest truth is, though, that I didn't have the courage to. I took the cowards way out. I'm so sorry Emmy. I hope that you can forgive me someday. I almost lost you that night. I realized that if I had, it would have ended me. I did the only thing I knew to do. I brought you home. As much as it hurt, at least I knew you were alive. I didn't give you a choice in the matter, because I know you would have stayed.”

"That was my choice Doctor, not yours.”

He nodded sadly. " I know that. I knew it the moment I left you. It's why I couldn't look you in the eyes. The truth is I felt you mattered too much to let you choose a road I knew you might not survive. I also knew if I stayed to speak with you, I wouldn't have been able to tell you no, because I never could.”

She stared at him for a moment and then she finally whispered, "I waited three years for you. I was never angry, but I hurt more than I can even begin to articulate. I hurt so much for three years. That's a very long time to a human.”

"I know.”

"Please tell me the truth Doctor. If you hadn't noted the weapon discharge, you wouldn't have returned would you?”

His face contorted in pain. "Honestly, no. Not if I thought you were safe, and me staying away would continue to keep you that way. I had been monitoring this area ever since I left. Until today, I never saw a reason to risk coming back. Coming back always meant I ran the risk of seeing you. I knew if I saw you, I wouldn't ever be able to walk away again. It hurt so much the first time, I wouldn't be able to leave your side again. Your life meant more to me than that.”

"That's the point, though, Doctor. My only life was with you. If I'm not with you, I just don't see the point." She looked into his eyes, and then she did the last thing he was expecting. She grabbed him by those awful red suspenders and kissed him. Their lips pressed to one another's with a force that was nearly magnetic. It was like they had both been starving all of this time and had at last found sustenance.

When she pulled away, his hands were tangled in her new head of fiery hair. Her hands on his chest and her forehead was pressed to his. She exhaled, trying to gather just the right words, but all she could come up with was, " You broke my heart…"

“Emmy..."

She looked back up into his eyes. "I understand though. I will never be able to look back on those years and not hurt, but I do understand. I'd do anything to keep you safe." She grabbed at the tumbleweed of hair that hung around her shoulders and held it up to him. "I have, and I would again.”

"I was just trying to keep you safe, Emmy. I'm so sorry." He looked up at her, eyes pleading with her to forgive him, but he was to afraid to ask.

She smiled. "Well, Doctor, it looks like you're stuck with me now. If you ever pull something like that again, so help me, I will help every Maquillian, Dalek and Cyberman in this quadrant find you and have their way with you!”

He grinned, really and truly grinned. "I'd have it coming." He placed his hands on either side of her face.

"So where you taking me?" Her hands were around his neck.

His face grew more serious. "Is this really what you want? You have to know, at this point, that this won't be easy.”

"I know. There is nothing easy about you. Your'e the most difficult man I know.”

"I can't give you a normal life.”

"If that's what I wanted, I'd have never left with you to begin with.”

"I'm old enough to be your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.”

"And yet you still need a keeper.”

“I..."

"Shut up Doctor. You're it for me and that's that.”

His eyes bore into her's. She had seen so many looks cross that face and those eyes since she met him. She'd seen rage, joy, fear, but for the first time in all of her days with him she saw uncertainty. "What is it Doctor?”

"I don't deserve this. I don't deserve you.”

"Yeah well, the TARDIS thought otherwise, and" she paused and held her hand over her heart and then moved her hand slowly to the right and grinned, "it looks like you're stuck with me." She grabbed his hand and held it to her chest. "Two hearts. I guess I never noticed because it never occurred to me to check.”

He gazed at her. His treasure. He was crying again, but for a whole other reason. For the first time in a very long time, he was not alone. He stood up and dusted off his slacks. He held his hand out to her, the same way he always had. "Ready my dear Emmy?”

She took his hand in hers and stood up. "Of course." He walked her to the controls. One arm around her waist and one hand on the panel, he pulled the lever. The TARDIS jumped and they were off. Together. Home.


End file.
